Friday, November 30, 2007

I already talked about this a little in class, BUT...

Facebook Scrabble (Scrabulous) is one of my new favorite things. I'm playing 13 games right now, some with my boyfriend, one with my brother, a couple some good friends that are at out-of-state schools, and even one with a kid I sat next to in first grade. The genius thing about Facebook scrabble is that I can play all 13 games at the same time, anywhere I want. There's no need for physical time or space to play. The genius thing on Facebook's part is that having software developers create these applications like Scrabble makes users not only stay on Facebook for extended periods of time, but also makes players come back again and again and again to check and see if it's their turn to play. I have already spent more time on Facebook in this past week than I have in my entire life because of Scrabble. I don't have much recreational time in real life because of school, work, etc., and I think Facebook is going to be very successful if it keeps taking the direction it is because Facebook is becoming my place of recreation. College kids are so stressed, isolated, and strained for time that internet Scrabble becomes an easy way to stay in contact with a person, but not necessarily devote a lot of time to it.

Another thing about Facebook that I've been dealing a lot with is privacy. Not the traditional sense of who can look at my profile, but the sense that anybody can find me from any point in my life. Also, the sheer number of people that are on Facebook creates a social attack of past and present relationships, and it's impossible to keep up with them all or include them all in your life! I'm dealing with the crazy girl that I mentioned in class right now. She looked me up, found me on Facebook, requested friendship, and now will not leave me alone. It's hard to deal with so many social assailants in a place of "hanging out." I think this is a phenomenon that every kid of my generation will have to deal with at some point because of the mass communication bombardment that exists in our global culture.